The Eugene City Council is weighing whether to implement a fire safety fee that aims to raise $10 million to close a general fund budget gap. 

On Nov. 18, the council held a public hearing on the proposed ordinance. In a nearly full-room meeting, the proposed ordinance drew opposition from nearly all in attendance, including firefighters and the Eugene Chamber of Commerce.

Tiffany Edwards, the chamber’s vice president of policy and community development, said that the chamber has concerns that the city council is not being transparent about the purpose of the fire safety fee.

“It’s not the amount … it’s more about … the lack of transparency about what it is actually funding,” Edwards said in an interview with The Daily Emerald. “They’re calling it a fire protection fee, [but] the funds that are actually needed for the city are not within fire. They need $8 million to fill other budget holes.”

Eugene resident Dan Patch said he is concerned about the city council’s attempt to pass the fee without going to residents first for a vote. 

“We recently voted on the [Lane] County courthouse and we voted it down,” Patch said at the public hearing. “You [the city] didn’t want that to happen. So now your way is to eliminate us so we don’t get to vote. We have a right to vote on things and you’re denying that.”

If the city council passes the fee, the city estimates it would cost landowners or tenants $10 per month for the median single-family home and $38 for the median commercial property. Those who occupy developed property within Eugene’s city limits, like a home or building, who pay stormwater fees would be responsible for paying the fire safety fee starting in July 2025.

Under the proposal, the city would reallocate $8 million of the nearly $40 million Eugene-Springfield Fire receives each year from the city’s general fund for fire and emergency medical services in Eugene by replacing it with $10 million in projected revenue from the fee. Currently, the general fund accounts for roughly 67% of the more than $59 million that Eugene allocates to the department each year. An additional $2 million would be provided to the department for expanding fire services from the fee.

Eugene-Springfield Fire Chief Mike Caven said that additional funding would allow his Eugene-based crews to have one smaller fire truck capable of responding to wildfires as well as fires and medical emergencies available. On peak service days during wildfire season, he said that the funds would be used to have two more of the smaller trucks available.

Kris Siewert is the President of the Lane Professional Firefighters Association, which represents firefighters in the Eugene-Springfield Fire Department. He said that additional squads that the fire safety fee would provide would do little to enhance the department’s service levels in Eugene.

“We have three engines that rank among the busiest in the country,” Siewert said at the Nov. 18 public hearing. “A two-person squad does little to reduce demand or response times.”

Eugene Chief Financial Officer Twylla Miller said that structural problems with the city’s property taxes, caused by changes to Oregon’s property system in the 1990s, which limit how much property taxes can increase every year, have led to the city’s current budget gap. She said that the problems have only worsened with inflation in recent years. 

Currently, the city council is still weighing the proposal and will likely not vote on it until January. Originally, the city council was poised to vote on the fire safety fee in December, but in a Nov. 20 work session councilors voted five to three to get more information from city staff about the city’s current financial condition before voting on it. They could still vote on the fee on Dec. 11 when the city council is scheduled to hold a work session to discuss the new information, but that’s unlikely, Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis said. 

“It’s conceivable that a councilor could step up and just put a motion for it and try to push it through, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen,” Vinis said. 

If the fire safety fee doesn’t pass, the city says it will need to enact $8 million in budget cuts. But exactly where those budget cuts will be isn’t exactly clear yet, Miller and City Councilor Jennifer Yeh said. 

If the fee doesn’t pass, Yeh said that the city council will face hard decisions about what they will need to cut. 

“Cutting millions of dollars from our budget is not going to feel the same as cuts that we’ve had in the past. These cuts will be felt,” Yeh said. “People will notice and that’s concerning because we’re done cutting the easy stuff and now we’re cutting the hard stuff, the stuff that is helping folks every day, services that people rely on.” 

However, other city councilors see the proposed fire safety fee differently than Yeh. City Councilor Mike Clark said that the proposed fee is a “bait and switch” that will shift currently allocated fire general fund dollars to fill a city budget gap.

“My problem with this is that it feels like a bait and switch and the reason is because we’re bringing in $10 million and spending it just on fire, but we’re taking $8 million of general fund money currently paying for fire out to go and spend on other things,” said City Councilor Mike Clark at the Nov. 20 work session. “And I think that’s part where we are going to risk losing community trust.”

Clark said that as a result of losing community trust over the proposal, the city council risks voters not renewing the Community Safety Payroll Tax in the future.

“I think the consequences could be failure of the public safety levy in a year and half [and] losing $23 million … to pay for police and public safety,” Clark said at the work session.